This is how emotionally drained you will feel after experiencing Wicked Lit. (McKenzie Eckels and Eric Keitel in Dracula's Guest, photo-by-Daniel-Kitayama)

Well, it is long past time to give the Devil his due. Hollywood Gothique experienced the latest incarnation of the Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival a few weeks ago, but time and tide have denied us opportunity to focus our analytic skills with sufficient concentration to do justice to the production. Yes, we tossed off a few quick lines in the interim, just enough to avoid remaining silent on the subject, but our continuing inability to complete a full-length review has been gnawing at us like a guilty secret.

Now at last we find ourselves with a few precious hours, undisturbed by prosaic obligations – just enough time to sift through the welter of raw emotions and responses provoked by this Halloween’s Wicked Lit; hopefully, with a little alchemy, our inchoate reaction will crystallize into a glowing Philosopher’s Stone that can transcend the inadequacy of mere words in order to convey the magic transpiring within the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery this season. All that having been said, we would offer this summation:

This year’s Wicked Lit is absolutely fucking awesome!

Yes, we know – you think we’re joking around, milking vulgarity for crude humor. But seriously, there is no other adequate way to express our reaction to this year’s production. For five years, Wicked Lit has had the best gimmick of any Halloween event in Los Angeles (classic horror plays staged in a real cemetery!), but this year the locations take a back seat to storytelling more engrossing than ever before, yielding visceral gut reactions and a swirling adrenalin high that last long after the memory of real tombstones and ossuaries have faded.

This is by far Wicked Lit’s best production, and much of the reason for that greatness lies in the fact that, rather than provoking the restrained responses one associates with a Masterpiece Theatre approach to the classics, Wicked Lit is hellbent on galvanizing its audience with blood-curdling genre thrills that impact the audience in a profoundly fundamental way: like a good horror movie firing on all cylinders, Wicked Lit drives toward dramatic climaxes that will tempt you to shout, “That kicked ass!”

The Spirits of Walpurgisnacht

Dustin Hess as Franz Mesmer

Written and Directed by Charlie Mount and Aurora Long

Per tradition, Wicked Lit presents three short plays based on classic horror literature. As in Halloween 2013, the problem of how to tie three separate vignettes into a satisfyingly unified experience has been solved by the inclusion of an interstitial story that runs during the downtime between the plays.

This year, the audience is entertained by Franz Mesmer, the 19th-century German physician who theorized that a form of mysterious form of natural energy – sometimes called animal magnetism or mesmerism – could be transferred between living beings and inanimate objects.

Mesmer (as personified by Dustin Hess) performs a series of magic acts that are all the more impressive for taking place in a central courtyard, where they can be viewed from 360 degrees. Volunteers from the audience are requested to assist with summoning the spirits, who ring bells and blow horns from behind a curtain – even though the volunteers are behind the curtain, too.

The tone is initially comic, and the focus is more on the routines than on any narrative progression. However, one of Mesmer’s psychic experiments eventually goes wrong in a ghastly manner, paving the way for a lugubrious funeral procession that climaxes the evening, leading to the most impressive prestidigitation of all – a miraculous resurrection via re-appearing act.

Though we slightly preferred 2013’s interstitial entertainment, The Red Death Experience, Franz Mesmer’s routines provided the perfect comic counterpoint to the ghastly horror of the evening’s other entertainment.

Note: Wicked Lit performances officially begin at 7:30pm, but it pays to arrive early, to hear Mesmer and his band of entertainers warming up for the evening with a merry little song and dance.

Dracula’s Guest

Adapted by John Leslie from the story by Bram Stoker, directed by Jeff G. Rack

Published posthumously, Bram Stoker’s short story has always been an enigma: allegedly the deleted first chapter of Dracula, (inconsistencies suggest it is actually a vestige of an abandoned, earlier draft of the novel), “Dracula’s Guest” relies for its impact on the reader’s awareness of what will happen afterward, but how the story’s events relate to the novel is unclear. An unnamed first-person narrator (presumably Jonathan Harker) gets lost on his way to Transylvania, but a timely, concerned missive from Dracula prompts a rescue party to arrive in time, suggesting that the narrator is under the Count’s protection.

Wicked Lit’s adaptation retains the essential idea: Jonathan Harker, in a foolish rush to keep his appointed meeting with Count Dracula, loses his way and winds up in a cemetery. However, instead of merely finding a beautiful and perfectly preserved dead woman in a tomb (as in the story), he encounters two ravenous female vampires. Here, the play borrows an idea from the novel itself, with Dracula’s brides eager to sate the blood-lust on the virile young man, but the Count intervening (in this case by proxy) to keep Harker alive – at least until the Englishman has completed the transactions that will enable the Vampire King to travel to England.

Dracula’s Guest seems to be Wicked Lit’s attempt to recreate the previous vampire effort, Wake Not the Dead from 2012, but the new play is far superior. In its earl seasons, Wicked Lit’s dramas tended to fall into a pattern of beginning with lengthy dialogues between two characters, filling in exposition and setting up the story while the audience stood around (literally) waiting for something to happen. Of this year’s three plays, Dracula’s Guest comes closest to following that pattern, with a rich inn-keeper negotiating with his frightened brother to drive Harker through the night, but there is a dramatic urgency to the scene that immediately sets up audience anticipation for the action to follow.

The staging moves nicely from a mausoleum interior representing the inn to the grounds, where the driver abandons Harker, who wanders into a cemetery; the audience feels as if it is following the action from scene to scene, finally taking a seat in Mountain View’s actual cemetery for the confrontation with the vampires. What follows is a sort of supernatural cat-fight, with the two women fighting over Harker: realizing his importance to the Count, the obedient bride resists her hunger, but the other wants to kill Harker to thwart Dracula’s plan to leave England.

The action is frantic and intense, and the script improves upon the source text by having the frightened driver return to save Harker – though the cost is dear. When the rescue party finally arrives finally arrives, it is too late to save everyone, and the triumph of the play is that, besides delivering the requisite chills, it also conveys a tragic sense of loss. When the devastated innkeeper declares he wants Harker out of his establishment and on his way as soon as possible (”He’s Dracula’s guest, not mine”), you feel the pain of his loss.

The gripping tale benefits from the cemetery setting, which is put to excellent use, with lights, shadows, and sounds suggesting unseen horrors in the darkness. As in Stoker’s short story, the Count himself never appears, but his invisible hand looms over the action, suggested here by an unseen wolf, whose growls the female vampires seem to understand. Hollywood Gothique would have preferred a more tangible manifestation: a cloaked figure silhouetted in the distance, maybe a line or two from the novel (”How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you’ll have to deal with me”). Nevertheless, Dracula’s Guest builds to a rousing climax, and after the (figurative) curtain has fallen, just when you think you can relax while leaving the cemetery, a final explosive thunderclap will send you leaping out of your skin, reminding you of just how much tension is lingering in your psyche.

Las Lloronas

Las Lloronas is the most ambitious of this year’s trio of tales – an attempt to synthesize different iterations of an oft-told legend into a cumulative narrative that places several different faces on a recurring archetype. If the result is not completely successful, that hardly matters; the attempt itself is rewarding enough – and frequently very effective.

La Llorona (Spanish for the “Weeping Woman”) is supposed to be the ghost of a woman who drowned her children, either to get revenge against her husband or to remove an impediment to a relationship with a man who does not want children. Denied entry into heaven, she wanders the Earth, wailing “Mis Hijos!” (”My Children!”).

As the plays’ vaguely Satanic story guide (if his sinister mien were not enough, those sharpened fingernails provide a clue) informs us, this story has been told many times, and will be told again – over and over. To embody this eternally recurring tale, four different actresses play the title character, who appears in different guises at different times, from ancient to modern (hence the plural title). Interestingly, the demarcation between the quartet is not clear, with all of the actresses appearing in every episode – for example, one narrating events while another performs the actions. It’s an intriguing strategy that engages viewer interest as we seek to keep track of which is which, the distinctions gradually blurring into a composite archetype.

This gambit comes with a downside: Though the concept is fascinating, it inevitably leads to the same basic story being told four successive times. The variations are not quite enough to maintain peak interest from start to finish, and the first version (an Aztec woman, married to Cortez, murders her children when her husband decided to return home to marry a Spanish noble woman) is so heart-rending that it is nearly impossible for the subsequent versions to match the opening salvo (though a well choreographed wedding dance provides an interesting counterpoint to the other narratives).

Along the way, the phantom figure of the Weeping Woman is pushed mostly off-stage. La Llorona makes an initial appearance to capture our attention, before the plays shifts focus to the different back stories explaining her ghostly existence. Thus the horror generated is not so much fear of the supernatural as revulsion against infanticide. Fortunately, the mournful mortuary setting maintains the ambiance of a tragic ghost story, and the spirit of La Llorona re-materializes for a spectacular climax, achieved with imaginative special effects.

Las Lloronas may not fully realize the potential of its ambitious concept, but the melodrama’s emphasis on believable horrors (the modern version of La Llorona is inspired by a real-life incident) provides an interesting contrast to the supernatural thrills of the other plays. The story cycle is enhanced by some clever lighting effects (including a slide projector) and strong performances (particularly Joe Camareno), and La Llorona’s final appearance is enough to send frightened viewers stumbling in the dark through the mausoleum corridors, seeking sanctuary from the shrieking ghost.

The Monk

Wendy Worthington as a nun with a dark secret

Adapted by Douglas Clayton, inspired by the novel by Matthew G. Lewis; directed by Debbie McMahon

Ironically, Wicked Lit’s greatest achievement for Halloween 2014 is the one that seemed most problematic. Matthew G. Lewis’s The Monk is a classic Gothic novel – one of the greatest examples of the form – but its lengthy depiction of the title character’s descent into damnation would seem to defy translation to a half-hour drama; however, this adaptation takes only a few key elements and characters, shaping them into a smaller story that fits the format perfectly. As in the original text, we have the admired and sinless Ambrosio (Eric Harris) who is lured into temptation by Matilda (Ember Knight), a woman acting as an emissary for infernal powers, but the focus has shifted from the monk to the temptress, who is here depicted as a woman forced by circumstances into making a pact with an apparently religious figure who turns out to be a personification of the the Devil.

[Sorry: spoilers] This adaptation pushes emotional buttons – and pushes boundaries, landing in adult territory as we see Ambrosio graphically seduced in a garden. Arriving too late to prevent tragedy, Matilda’s would-be lover Lorenzo becomes collateral damage, and a guilt-ridden Ambrosio takes his own life. Satan seems triumphant, having claimed not only Ambrosio’s soul but Matilda’s as well: in exchange for her service, Matilda will be granted something denied a woman during this era – power. Not only material power but spiritual as well. In a grandiose turn-of-events that is supremely satisfying, we see that the Power of Evil has overplayed its hand: once imbued with her new abilities, Matilda turns them on her Mephistopheles, resurrecting her victims like avengers from beyond the grave and sending them to rend the demon’s human form into bloody pieces – an ending completely different but every bit as over-the-top as the novel’s. [End Spoilers]

Using Mountain View’s chapel and two outdoor settings, the story of The Monk flows smoothly from start to finish, quickly setting up the dilemma that will lead to tragedy and bringing the debauchery to its conclusion like the arrival of an inescapable fate. The horrible sense of goodness corrupted and defiled is palpable, almost vile, which perfectly sets up the twist ending, which rebounds in an unexpected way on its perpetrator. Lewis’ novel was a morality play about what can befall a soul that succumbs to temptation, with a grizzly form of justice meted out in a gruesome climax that extended for the better part of two pages. Here, the moral lesson is pushed aside to emphasize the graphic retribution, which neatly combines a shudder of horror with an ecstatic thrill of triumph. Or putting it another way – if we may be allowed to revert to crude vulgarity once more – we can think of no greater thrill we have experienced this season than seeing the powers of darkness bitch-slapped back into Hell.

The Wicked Lit Back Stage Experience

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the mausoleum.

For an extra fee, audience members can purchase a ticket to Wicked Lit that includes an informal behind-the-scenes tour after the plays are over. You can probably imagine the sorts of problem that might face a theatre troupe staging a production inside a real mausoleum – no, strike that. You may think you can imagine the problem, but you have no idea.

The Back Stage Tour hits a handful of major locations (most of which have been used multiple times over the years) while relating colorful anecdotes about the various mishaps that have occurred therein. Our favorite involved the room that was flooded by rain during the run of “The Body Snatcher.” It wasn’t enough to simply remove the water so that the cast and audience could enter – the play’s action involved the lights going out and a character lighting a match on the floor – which, perforce, needed to be absolutely bone-dry!

As much as the mishaps, the tour fascinates with revelations of what happens just outside the audience’s view. The mausoleum provides so much atmosphere that you might think Wicked Lit could simply perform their act within its walls, but much more than that goes on: : technicians and sound people hiding around corners, pushing buttons to make sure that effects happen on cue. For a fascinating glimpse of those unseen details, take this entertaining and informative tour.

Conclusion

Joe Camareno as the sinister Story Guide in Las Lloronas.

Wicked Lit’s exploitation of the Moutain View Mausoleum and Cemetery reaches new heights this Halloween. As in 2013, the story guides leading the audience have been more carefully integrated into the plays, and the staging of the action has been crafted to make viewers feel as if they are following the action from scene to scene, not merely being led from one location to the next. The settings have been well chosen – and enhanced more than ever before with remarkable lighting, sounds, and effects.

But all of those features are like bells and whistles on a house organ – decorations to embellish the music being played. What matters is the melody. For Halloween 2014, Wicked Lit pulls out all the stops. Though never crude – not even when depicting the seduction of a monk – the production never shies away from its horrors, never dulls them with a sense of too tasteful restraint. The result has all the impact of an exploitation horror piece that goes unapolagetically for the jugular. The thrills and shocks you experience will last all October – and beyond.

Wicked Lit is staged within the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery, at 2300 Marengo Ave in Altadena. Remaining performances run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays on these dates: October 23-26, 29-31; November 1-2, 5-8 (no performances on Sunday, November 9). Tickets range from $35 to $60 for General Admission, or $60 to $85 for General Admission with Back Stage Experience. Mature audiences only (13 and over). Call 818 242 7910 for reservations, or Click here for the official website.

This year, The Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival introduced a Back Stage Experience, which takes place after each performance, with the producers and directors escorting a dozen members of the audience (for an additional charge) to the show’s various locations and explaining the behind-the-scenes details of mounting the production.

Here are details on this year’s trilogy of terror, taken from the official website:

LA LLORONA, adapted by Jonathan Josephson, directed by Paul Millet. The Mexican folk legend La Llorona (“The Weeping Woman”) tells the story of a desperate mother who murders her children by drowning them in a river. But what compels her to commit such an atrocious act? Fear? Insanity? Spite? Procession? Conveyed through dialogue, storytelling, dance, song, and music, this new adaptation will plunge audiences into five different perspectives of this haunting cautionary tale. Beginning with the legend’s historical origins in 16th Century Mexico and ending in modern day Los Angeles with a story that was inspired by actual events, this senses-blasting theatrical event is unlike anything ever produced by Unbound Productions.

DRACULA’S GUEST by Bram Stoker, adapted by Dan Leslie, directed by Jeff G. Rack. Determined Brit, Jonathan Harker has travelled to Romania to meet with a mysterious Count about selling him property in London – but he can’t get a coach. He is only a few miles from his destination in the Transylvania mountains, but on Walpurgisnacht, only one man is willing to make the sacrifice to get him up the hill. What are the villagers so afraid of? Originally written to be the first chapter of the groundbreaking horror novel Dracula, this chilling short story was published posthumously by Bram Stoker’s wife in 1914.

THE MONK, inspired by the novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, adapted by Douglas Clayton, directed by Debbie McMahon. Matilda has journeyed to Italy to seek the help of a clergyman who is known not only for his skills as an orator but for his ability to help those oppressed by the church. To what lengths will she go to secure her future – and at whose expense? This stylized, lyrical production examines the faces of sin in all of its many forms.

There is a preview performance on Thursday, October 2; then the limited engagement runs from October 3 through November 8, with performances on:

Friday-Sunday, Oct 3-5;

Wednesday-Sunday, Oct 8-10,12 (October 11 is SOLD OUT)

Wednesday-Sunday, Oct 15-19;

Wednesday-Sunday, Oct 22-26;

Wednesday-Sunday, Oct 29-Nov 2

Wednesday-Saturday, Nov 5-8.

Wicked Lit was selected by Hollywood Gothique as the Best Halloween event of 2013, so we highly recommend you put it on your calendar for Halloween 2014.

Tickets range from $35 to $60 for General Admission, or $60 to $85 for General Admission with Back Stage Experience. Wicked Lit sells out every year, so book tickets in advance.

There is considerable walking involved for the audience, with many scenes staged outside on the cemetery grounds, so dress accordingly.

Looking for more ways to enjoy Halloween in Los Angles? Check out our pages for Halloween Haunts and Halloween Haunts: Tours and Shows!

Katie Pelensky and Carlos Larkin in “The New Catacomb.” Photo by Daniel Kitayama.

A post on the Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival’s Facebook page informs us that fewer than 50 tickets are available for the rest of the show’s run, which ends on November 2 (no extensions this year, apparently). As you already know from our Wicked Lit 2013 Review, we think this is the must see event of Halloween 2013, so we recommend your tickets ASAP.

There is still space on Halloween Night, which offers the additional inducement of an opportunity to join the cast and crew after the show for coffee and Halloween treats. Costumes are allowed this night only, but please avoid large costumes or masks.

Check out a few photographs from this year’s trio of terrifying plays: The New Catacomb, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and The Lurking Fear.

Ilona Kulinska and Eric DeLoretta in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Photo by Daniel Kitayama.

Eric Keitel in "The Lurking Fear." Photo by Daniel Kitayama.

The Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival runs at the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery Thrusdays through Sundays in October, plus November 1 and 2. The address is 2300 Marengo Avenue in Altadena. Get more information, including ticket prices at Unbound Productions.org.

Find more Halloween Shows and Tours on this page. Or click here for our master list of Halloween Haunts in Los Angeles.

Wicked Lit’s Best Halloween Theatre Festival Ever

Tired of chainsaws, jump-scares, and phony fog? Looking for a more sophisticated way to enjoy Halloween in Los Angeles? Then you must – absolutely must - head over to the Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena for the 2013 Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival.

Rather like the Headless Horseman galloping through Sleepy Hollow, Unbound Productions has truly hit its stride this season, crafting its finest production to date. The essential strategy remains – a trio of one-act plays based on classic horror literature, staged in a real location – but Wicked Lit navigates the terrain like never before, taking you on a tour of imaginary landscapes that come to life with alarming authenticity.

What makes this Halloween different? Two elements.

First, the plays have been more carefully staged to exploit the mausoleum and cemetery locations, with scenic transitions incorporated into the story. In seasons past, a scene would unfold in one area of the grounds; then a story guide would lead the audience to the next location, chatting on the way; another scene would take place, and so on. This Halloween, the action continues as the audience moves from one location to the next, often at a lively clip, with the cast of characters either pursuing or being pursued through tombs, gravestones, and catacombs. The story guides tend to be more fully incorporated into the dramas as supporting characters or more insistent about keeping you on the right path, enhancing the illusion of being swept up into a living narrative taking place around you.

Second, the “Masque of the Red Death Experience” perfects an approach attempted last Halloween, filling the lulls between the plays with interstitial vignettes, songs, poetry readings, and improvised interactivity – thus creating a more unified experience out of the anthology format, one that engulfs you almost from the moment you set food on the grounds, until you leave at the final tolling of the midnight hour (figuratively speaking, that is).

The Masque of the Red Death Experience

Conceived and directed by Paul Millet

Not, strictly speaking, a play in and of itself, the Masque of the Read Death Experience takes the setting rather than the narrative of Poe’s story and uses it to synthesize the evening’s fragmented entertainment into a satisfying whole.

The audience is treated like the invited guests of Prince Prospero, safely ensconced within the walls of his castle, enjoying revelries and entertainment while the lethal Red Death ravages the countryside without. Masked dancers, singers, musicians, and jugglers greet you as you enter, then endeavor to please you with their proffered entertainments, which range from the bawdy to the sophisticated.

The highlight is a series of songs – duets for voice and cello – that incorporate such cherished works from the Poe canon as “Annabelle Lee” and “The Raven” (the latter illustrated by an eccentric interpretive dance). The lyrics amend Poe’s poetry to fit the music, and the time signatures subvert the original rhythms, but the re-purposing is precisely attuned to the musical format, and the actual melodies (beautifully sung) are startling in their ability to enhance Poe’s words. In particular, “The Bells” is quite literally capable of bringing tears to your eyes.

Remarkably, the compositions generally avoid obvious minor-key moodiness and yet still manage to capture the tortured anguish of the text. So when is the soundtrack album coming out?

The Lurking Fear

Adapted by Jeff G. Rack & Jonathan Josephson

Directed by Paul Millet

Richard Large, Erik Keitel, Brian David Pope

Based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft, this adaptation exemplifies many of the strengths of this year’s Wicked Lit. Too often, past plays have fallen into a predictable format, beginning with a dialogue between two characters, who stand around talking not because they need to say anything to each other but because they need to fill the audience in on the back story.

“The Lurking Fear,” by contrast, begins in media res: after the audience is almost stampeded into a chapel to avoid strange cultists barring any avenue of escape, we meet characters (sheriffs, bounty hunters, a reporter), who are also seeking shelter from the threat outside – which includes not only the cult but also a monster. After the wary adversaries join forces and set off on their quest – only then, is the exposition neatly parceled out.

As we follow the band outside and eventually into an old mansion, the sense of being on the run – alternately pursuing and pursued – is palpable, giving this play an energetic adrenalin kick unlike its companion pieces. The action maintains a fever pitch, matched by the characters, particularly the junior bounty hunter (Eric Keitel) – a wild-eyed loon who is nonetheless rather likable.

The drama borrows only a few basic ideas from the titular tale (such as a tell-tale genetic quirk – two eyes of different color – that reveals the monster to be a descendant of a human family that devolved back into savagery), and combines them with other pieces of the Lovecraft mythos (Cthulhu makes an appearance to the characters if not to us).

Unlike many Wicked Lit plays, which tend to be more suspenseful than outright horrifying, “The Lurking Fear” does indeed generate a few shivers, especially when the cultist emerge from the shadows, surrounding the audience outside or lurking within the mausoleum walls. Unfortunately, the climax requires a rather hefty information dump that undermines the impact of the melodrama.

Things were not quite as they seemed, we are told. Unlike a really good twist, however, this one does not make the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit in a new way but instead jumbles up for the sake of a surprise. Too bad: the ending could have had a profound impact if the groundwork had been laid on a more solid foundation.

The New Catacomb

Adapted by Jonathan Josephson

Directed by Douglas Clayton

Unlike “The Lurking Fear,” this play, based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, does indeed resort to the traditional opening ploy of having two characters stand around and talk. Fortunately, there is some inherent mystery in the situation, as one of the characters has come all the way to Rome to see a new catacomb recently discovered by an old acquaintance. The unfamiliar setting (unfamiliar to one of the characters, at least) and the lateness of the hour create a sense of wary expectation, and the dialogue that follows really is needed for each character to bring the other up to speed.

Unfortunately, the scene plays a gambit that does not pay off. Attempting to sound like men carefully weighing their words before divulging sensitive secrets, the two performers (Chairman Barnes and Carlos Larkin) sometimes sound simply like actors straining to remember their lines. The measured delivery dissipates much of the ominous atmosphere – until the pair set off to visit the new catacomb. Then things get creepy – and very dark.

What follows reads like Doyle’s attempt to retell “The Cask of Amontillado” (a fact tacitly admitted when the villain of the piece queries his unwary adversary, “Ever read Poe?”). The difference here is that the temptation is not a cask of wine but a great archeological discovery, and there is an additional twist or two that will surprise you even if you are familiar with Poe’s tale.

The mausoleum corridors are put to excellent use here. The long halls, barely lit, suggest a subterranean labyrinth in which it is easy to imagine being lost. Like the hapless victim, we are instructed to hold onto a string that traces the correct path; the fragile thread serves only to remind us how tenuous are grip is on the means to find our way back.

The finale plunges us into near-total blackness, enhanced by echoing voices that obscure the location of the characters. The sense of hopeless dread – fear of the dark, of being lost and helpless – is quite pronounced. Then just when you think it’s over and your story guide is leading you to the exit, you pause for one last little exclamation point.

With its use of space, sound, and lighting (or lack thereof), “The New Catacomb” takes Doyle’s literary idea off the page and brings its climax to life so well that it is hard to imagine a more effective rendition.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Adapted by Jonathan Josephson

Directed by Jeff G. Rack

An innovative touch: actress Ilona Kulinska (as Katrina Van Tassel) provides her own illumination in a scene from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Washington Irving’s classic tale (subject of a Disney cartoon, a Tim Burton film, and a new television series) is suitably spooky for the Halloween season, but its most familiar image – The Headless Horseman – would seem difficult if not impossible to achieve in a live, outdoor staging. Unbound Productions pulls it off, however.

This adaptation feels a bit like a live reading of the story, with various bits of narration parceled out to actors who also perform roles within the drama. What might have been static within a conventional stage venue comes to vivid life on the mausoleum grounds. The blocking of the action is so elaborate that it virtually qualifies as dance choreography, with characters making rapid entrances and exists, replacing each other in different areas, appearing first before you, then above you, then behind you.

The story, rendered more faithfully than in the 1999 film with Johnny Depp, has a certain amount of humor thanks to the figure of Ichabod Crane (a schoolmaster, played by Eric DeLoretta, who woos a woman more for her larder than her charms). Nevertheless, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” delivers the Halloween chills when Crane departs from a party and rides home through territory allegedly haunted by the ghost of a Hessian Horseman who was decapitated during the Revolutionary War.

The cemetery setting for the final confrontation is perfect, and the personification of the Headless Horseman is an impressive technical feat: at first suggested by sound effects, the Horseman eventually appears as an imposing figure silhouetted in the distance, then as a rider on a spectral horse (a glowing special effect projection), before finally hurling a Jack-O’Lantern head at the unfortunate Crane, who is last seen haplessly wandering among the gravestones himself, like a lost and blasted soul.

This was our favorite of this year’s trio of plays. It is ironic that this adaptation of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” dates from a few years back (when it was performed at Wicked Lit’s previous location), because this presentation of it seems to be the perfect culmination of what Unbound Productions has been building toward over the course of the past two Halloween seasons. The multiple, moving narrators convey the story directly to the audience, without contrived dialogue; the constant scene changes keep the action flowing without forcing an unnatural pace; and staging utilizes the available locations, so well that we almost feels as if we were walking alongside Ichabod through Sleepy Hollow.

Also, we were pleased to find Wicked Lit upping the immersive quality of the event by “casting ” the audience as guests at a party, where Ichabod’s rival, Brom Bones (Shawn Savage), regales the assembled folks with tales of his own encounters with the Headless Horseman).

Conclusion

Despite the slightly shaky start of “The New Catacomb” and the muffled ending of “The Lurking Fear,” this year’s trilogy of terror strikes a remarkably satisfying balance of settings and stories, and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” struck as Wicked Lit’s most perfectly realized production to date.

In the past, one daunting challenge of Wicked Lit was to create a satisfying send-off. Whatever the strengths of the individual plays, they cannot build to a climax, because there is no telling in what order they will be viewed (the audience is divided into three groups, each experiencing the stories in a different sequence). Consequently, the conclusion of the third play – whichever one that happened to be – often felt open-ended, as if something more should happen.

For Halloween 2013, the “Masque of the Red Death Experience” provides that closure, with the climactic appearance of the Red Death himself – a giant, spastic stilt-walker who arrives at the stroke of midnight, accompanied by a reading from Poe’s lament for mortality, “The Conqueror Worm.” As the last of Prince Prospero’s revelers falls before the crimson embodiment of the plague, there is no doubt that each member of the audience will feel he has supped his full allotment – “much of madness, more of sin, and horror…”

Since 2010, the Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival has been an interesting change of pace from more traditional Halloween haunted houses and hayrides. This year, it becomes a must-see event. We cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival runs at the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery Thrusdays through Sundays in October, plus November 1 and 2. The address is 2300 Marengo Avenue in Altadena. Get more information, including ticket prices at Unbound Productions.org.

Find more Halloween Shows and Tours on this page. Or click here for our master list of Halloween Haunts in Los Angeles.

Description: Unbound Productions returns to the Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery for another season of Halloween horrors, featuring a trio of plays based on classic supernatural fiction, intertwined with a theatrical “experience” filling the intermissions between performances.

This year’s three plays are based on THE LURKING FEAR by H.P. Lovecraft, THE NEW CATACOMB by Arthur Conan Doyle, and THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW by Washington Irving. Before and between the three one-act dramas, the audience will be immersed in THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH EXPERIENCE, a series of vignettes inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe.

As before, these performances require the audience to keep up, as actors move through real locations: room, corridors, an art gallery, and a cemetery. Wear comfortable shoes, and be prepared for cold weather outside.

Tickets: The Thursday, October 3 Preview Performance is $30. Subsequent prices range from $45 to $55.